


Hugs Heal the Wounds Tears Leave Behind

by altoinkblots



Series: Hugs Heal the Wounds Tears Leave Behind [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asexual Male Character, Bisexual Female Character, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Gen, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, ignore the title this is as fluffy as it gets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23370724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altoinkblots/pseuds/altoinkblots
Summary: Walking into her lecture hall, Winry sees a lone figure sitting by himself... crying? What is up with that, and is he okay?
Relationships: Edward Elric & Winry Rockbell, Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell
Series: Hugs Heal the Wounds Tears Leave Behind [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680922
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	Hugs Heal the Wounds Tears Leave Behind

Winry shouldered her backpack as she walked into the lecture hall. Class would start in fifteen minutes, and she wanted to talk to the professor for a little bit before it started. As usual with a seven-thirty class, it was completely empty, save for one person she didn’t recognize. She frowned. Professor Fisher was usually early, setting up the projector for class that day. She wasn’t there, at the front of the classroom where she normally was, but there was a boy sitting off to the side, looking down at something. She walked over to him.

He had blond hair tied back into a low braid, with long bangs on either side of his face shading his features from view and he was… crying? Winry hung back, not sure if she should interrupt to ask where Professor Fisher was. He sniffled and wiped his eyes. Yes, he was clearly crying, but over what? Was that even her business?

Winry wrung her hands together. She wanted to see if he was okay, but he probably didn’t want to be bothered. He was in a lecture hall at seven-twenty in the morning, he most likely wanted to be left alone. But what if it was serious and he  _ didn’t _ want to be alone? Winry knew that when she got into weepy, crying moods all she wanted was a shoulder to cry on. But she was a weepy person by nature, and she didn’t want to embarrass the guy. 

Steeling herself, she sat next to him. “You okay?” she asked in a soft voice, looking at him as non-threateningly as she could. 

He jumped, and then stared at her, his eyes red and bloodshot with tear streaks down his face. He quickly wiped the tears away. “Yeah, I’m fine. Um… are you in this class?”

“Calc 2010 with Christina Fisher? Yeah.”

He nodded and gulped. “Yeah, class was canceled today. She had a conference or something.”

Winry sighed. Professor Fisher had sent the email last night, but she was too tired to pay attention to it. She had been too busy working on homework for this class that she completely forgot. 

“You forgot, didn’t you?” he asked with a small smile.

Winry nodded, her lips pursed. “Yup.”

“I did too.”

That made Winry smile. “Yeah. I wanted to ask for clarification on Green’s theorem, but if she’s not here then I’ll just go to the tutoring center.”

“I can help you with that.”

Winry raised an eyebrow. “All right, but I don’t want to be a bother in case you need to work through things.”

His face burned a bright red. “It was stupid anyway,” he mumbled.

Winry slammed her hand down on the armrest. “Cut the crap. Anything that makes someone cry at seven-thirty in the morning by themselves in an empty lecture hall isn’t ‘stupid.’ Trust me, I cry on a daily basis.”

“That’s a little excessive, not gonna lie.”

“You are right; I’m constantly dehydrated. “ To prove her point, she took out her water bottle and gulped about half of it down. She popped the lid closed and put it back. “Now if you don’t want to tell a complete stranger why you were crying, that’s totally fine, but crying is an excellent way to process your emotions and you shouldn’t stop on my account.”

“I don’t mind telling you why, but you have to swear not to tell anyone.”

Winry held up three fingers. “Girl Scout’s honor, your secret is safe with me.”

“Before we get any further into this riveting conversation, my name’s Ed.”

He held out his hand and Winry shook it. “Winry,” she said. 

He blew a puff of air out. “Okay. Have you heard of the game  _ Circle and Rise _ ?”

Winry shook her head. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Okay, well, it’s a really good game about this family and they’re stuck in a time loop, so every time they die the whole game starts over again. Kind of a pain, but each time you die something changes just a little bit until you’re almost playing a completely different game. Anyway, I finished it this morning, and it was completely heartbreaking. The buildup, the characters, the interactions  _ between _ the characters, it's just so good. Every aspect about it. Oh, and it’s a little like  _ The Truman Show _ , if that makes sense.”

Winry nodded. “Sounds fun.”

“It’s so much fun, but the only person that escaped the loop was the mom and she had to leave her kids and brother and wife behind and -- and…” He took several shaky breaths, blinking to keep the tears from falling. “I am a wreck.”

Winry turned towards him, so her knee was up against the armrest. “Do you want a hug?”

He looked at her, puzzled. “What?”

“A hug. Do you want one? My roommate says I give the best hugs.”

“Why would I want a hug?”

Winry shrugged. “I don’t know, do you?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well, hugs make me feel better after I cry. Tears of joy, tears of sadness, complete meltdowns at two in the morning… Hugs heal the wounds tears leave behind.”

Ed smirked. “Where’d you hear that one from?”

“My mom.”

“Oh. Um, sure. I’ll have the hug.”

What followed was the most awkward hug Winry had ever had in her life. Her and Ed had to reach across the armrest, with her knee pressed into the screws holding the armrest together and neither of them really sure where to put their arms. Winry patted Ed on the back -- twice -- before she pulled away. They looked at each other, then blinked at the same time. 

“Well, should we get going?” Winry asked, eager to escape the awkward energy between them. “You can certainly try to explain Green’s theorem to me on our way out.”

“Yes. We should definitely do that. Don’t want to give people the wrong idea or anything… Not that we would, but you never know, on a college campus…”

Both her and Ed’s faces flushed.

“Anyway,” he said, picking up his backpack. “Lead the way, Winry.”

She picked up her own bag and slung it over the shoulder. They walked in silence out of the lecture hall, past the empty sitting area and the practice rooms -- who had had the brilliant idea to put a calculus class in the Fine Arts building, anyway? -- and out onto the main campus. 

“Tutoring center?” Winry asked. 

Ed shrugged. “Or we could go to the library and grab a study room really quickly. I’m sure there’s a spare one open this early in the morning.”

Winry groaned. “That’s all the way across campus,” she whined. “But the tutoring center is farther. Okay. Library it is.”

The two of them started the long walk across campus, avoiding puddles from the rainfall the night before. They walked in silence until Winry couldn’t take it anymore.

“Tell me a little more about  _ Circle and Rise _ ,” she said. 

Ed’s face lit up. “How much in detail do you want?”

“Well, I doubt I’m ever going to play the game, so everything, I guess?”

Winry listened as Ed’s mouth started flying a mile a minute, explaining the premise and how to play and literally everything about the game. His hands moved around him animatedly as he talked, and he occasionally had to spit hair out of his mouth, which always made Winry giggle. As he went on, Winry found herself listening with rapture; Ed’s enthusiasm was contagious, and she had a half-smile on her face the entire time. When they got to the library his voice softened to a whisper, and they found a small, secluded study room on the fourth floor.

“... and so that’s when Camden found out that they had to go  _ above _ the simulation, but that’s actually when I died all over again so I had to start from the very beginning, but this time…” 

Ed continued talking, completely oblivious to the fact that they were in a study room. Winry sat down at the table. He certainly was energetic, she had to give him that. She cleared her throat. “As much as I enjoy hearing about  _ Circle and Rise _ , you did say you’d help me with Green’s theorem.”

Ed blinked. “Right, yeah. Sorry. So, what don’t you get about it?” He pulled a chair out right next to Winry and sat down in it, setting his bag on the floor.

“Everything?”

“Okay. I don’t know how much time we’ll have -- when’s your next class?”

“Nine.”

Ed looked at his watch and winced. “Yeah, we might not get through it; I have a class at eight-forty-five. Is there a time we could get together and hash it out then?”

Winry thought for a moment. “I could do Thursday after two-thirty, and Saturday before five.”

“Saturday works for me. Do we want to meet here?”

Winry looked around the small room. It had concrete walls, and the wall with the door was glass panes. There was a whiteboard, an armchair, and the table they were sitting at. It was also secluded and very quiet. “Works for me,” she said. 

Ed leaned back in his chair. “So, to kill time until we have to go to class: what was the last thing you cried over?”

Winry laughed. “Do you really want to know?”

“I told you mine!”

“Okay, fine. I was watching a show --”

“What show?”

“ _ Emberring _ .”

“Haven’t heard of it.”

“That’s not surprising; it got canceled after only eight episodes. But I was looking at fanart while watching, because I’ve seen it about a million times, and I came across this and I loved it so much I started crying.” She pulled out her phone and showed him her background. It was a picture of two people, a man with almost translucent wings looking down at a woman who was kneeling and crying. “They’re brother and sister,” she explained. “And he died in the third episode and is the reason she even started doing everything that she did in the first place.”

“Holy crap, seriously? He dies in the third episode and there’s only eight of them?”

Winry nodded. “Yeah. Fortunately, the showrunners always had an inkling the show would get canceled, so they kept things tight and fairly episodic.”

“Yeah, but eight episodes. It got canceled after eight episodes. In what universe is that allowed?”

Winry shrugged with her arms. “Corporate Hollywood. If people don’t watch it, it doesn’t happen.”

Ed glowered. “Well, corporate Hollywood can fu--”

Winry’s phone started buzzing. “Hold on, my friend’s calling me,” she said apologetically. Ed rolled his eyes, but kept quiet. “Hello?” Winry said. 

“ _ Hey, Winry, my cat escaped and I got a text from my coworker that she saw a cat in my car. Do you think you can help a girl out?” _

Winry sighed. “Yeah, Paninya, I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

“ _ You’re the best!” _

“I know, Paninya.”

“ _ I owe you big-time! _ ”

“Yes you do, Paninya. Bye.” She sighed and turned her phone off. “My friend’s cat escaped into her car, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be driving the cat back to her apartment. Sorry,” she said. “I’ll see you on Saturday, though!”

“Here, give me your phone,” Ed said. Winry handed it over, her eyebrows scrunched together. He tapped a few things on it, then held it up and took a selfie with his eyes flat and his tongue sticking out. He gave the phone back to her. “That’s my phone number. If you text me,  _ please _ tell me who you are or I’ll get super defensive and won’t answer.”

Winry winked. “Got it. See you later, Ed!”

He waved at her as she left the room, looping her arms through her backpack. She pulled out her phone and sent him a quick text:  _ Hi, this is Winry!! _

Within a few seconds, he responded with a gif of someone waving their hand. She snorted, and sent an eye-rolling emoji

_ don’t you have a cat to catch?? _ he sent.

_ Yes, but it’s all the way across campus its gonna take a while to get there _

_ Excuses, excuses _

_ Well, if you don’t stop texting me I’ll be late to my next class cause I cannot type and walk at the same time it’s kind of a problem _

_ Then stop texting and get the damn cat _

Winry rolled her eyes.  _ See you Saturday _ , she texted.

_ See you then!! _

Winry smiled and pocketed her phone. Maybe it was a good thing she forgot that Professor Fisher had canceled class. Ed was a cool dude, and Winry was glad she ran into him. She skipped a little bit, a small smile almost plastered on her face.

**Author's Note:**

> I cracked. This is a series. Get ready for more Bi!Winry and Ace!Ed content (that isn't in the same universe as my other bi!winry and ace!ed thing), because the next prompt in my list was too good not to pass this up. Comment/leave kudos if you liked it!!


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